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Comment by RobertoG | Hacker News Reader

I think you are underestimating greatly Greece military capabilities with that comment.

No, I’m fairly confident in that comment. Any ranking of military capabilities on virtually any dimension puts Israel in a higher tier than Greece.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2018/02/26/ten-st...

https://ceoworld.biz/2020/03/03/ranked-military-strength-of-...

> Any ranking of military capabilities on virtually any dimension puts Israel in a higher tier than Greece.

Those rankings are accurate when looking through the lens of "how many offensive resources do they have", but when you say "on virtually any dimension" I think one needs to also take geography into account.

For example Switzerland is also ranked well below Israel, but good luck invading the Swiss on their home turf.

Switzerland isn't a great example; they're on friendly enough terms with the EU their air force had 8-5 office hours until a few years ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/19/swis...

Israel is... not in a comparable "surrounded by friendly democracies" scenario.

The Swiss thing is a weird one because anyone who actually wants to invade Switzerland is probably going to be mad enough to just start bombing all the civilians with nerve gas or similar. The Swiss air force for example consists of some F-5s and some regular Hornets so I wouldn't bet on them for long either.

Greece is part of both NATO and the EU which would likely be an issue for anyone going military on them.

Apples and oranges. It's been 2200 years since Jews and Greeks last fought, and both sides aim to keep it that way.

Israel has 0 island-hopping capabilities compared to Greece's ability to patrol its Aegean waters.

Israel has a navy, and nuclear-fitted subs allegedly.

Navy’s aren’t interchangeable.

Is real has many costal patrol ships and a few subs. The Greeks have a navy suitable for their archipelago waters

Israel could do Greece a favor send some IDF forces to play as the Turks and war game a land invasion on the Thracian border. It would be a useful exercise for Greece because Israel's infantry capabilities map closer to Turkey's than to Greece's.

Greece and Israel do a joint military exercise each year on the Greek peninsula. Mostly land and air forces.

Israel and Greece even use the same dieselhydroelectric TKMS submarines (just Israel using a special larger version with special features).

> It's been 2200 years since Jews and Greeks last fought

Which conflict was that?

the Maccabean Revolt.

Still celebrated today as part of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah

Outside of germany and poland most jews died in greece in the Holocaust. Salonika had a vibrant jewish population in early 1900s and now virtually no jews live in Salonika. During ottoman times greeks and jews were fierce enemies and killed each other in many occasions in Istanbul, Smyrna, Alexandria and Salonika.. Jews, mostly loyal to ottamans during the greek independence war were punished (aka murdered) by the greek army in many occasions.

Outside of germany and poland most jews died in greece in the Holocaust.

"Most" as a percentage, not an absolute number. There were approximately 60.000 Jews who were murdered from Greece which amounts for 87% of the total Jewish population in the country. Hungary had some 500k loses, Poland 3M, Romania at least 200k, Soviet Union 1,3M etc.

It is true that in the Ottoman and Czarist mercantile cities, ethnic riots did involve Jews and Greeks, sometimes against each other. I should have specifically said Jewish and Greek armies.

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